“I know, it’s just, I have so many classes. And, like, I had a chemistry test and then these guys in my dorm were being loud—”
William held up his hand. “Stop.”
Nathaniel shoved a fingernail in his mouth.
“You will rewrite this paper. And I want you to research why Camus wrote The Stranger. Tell me what inspired him and if you can spot any similarities to Meursault.”
Nathaniel let out an audible breath. “Thank you for not turning me in.”
William wasn’t listening, caught up in his own tangent.
“Also, I want to make you my personal research assistant.”
“Uh … why?”
“This isn’t a punishment; it’s an opportunity. A way to prove yourself. I haven’t shared this with the class, but there’s an editor at a big publishing house reading a manuscript of mine.”
He waited for Nathaniel to show some type of enthusiasm. The kid just sat there.
“Anyway, since the book is only half done, I have a lot of research left to do. I can’t just wait for the editor to get back to me, I have to keep writing, stay in the groove, you know? Can I count on you, Nathaniel?”
Nathaniel nodded and tossed his eyes at the door.
“Can I go now, Professor? I was up all night worrying about this and need to sleep.”
William shooed him away. As Nathaniel approached the door, William rapped his knuckles against the desk.
“By Monday I want both essays,” he said. “So get some sleep and then start when you wake.”
“Okay,” Nathaniel said. “Thanks again.”
After Nathaniel left, William checked his phone to see if Kyle had contacted him. He had been itching to do so for the past few minutes. The most recent text Kyle sent was from last night and said he’d call tomorrow. William had sent a few texts afterward, asking for some initial thoughts on Devil’s Hopyard, but Kyle never responded. He didn’t like when people left him hanging. When he asked a question in his classroom, he expected an answer. He had earned the right to an answer.
He checked his watch and saw it was only eight in the morning, and he figured Kyle hadn’t gone to his office yet. He had the sudden urge to drive down to Burke & Burke, now dissatisfied with a conversation over the phone. After ten years of slaving over his opus, he felt he warranted a face-to-face. Maybe Kyle would see how hungry he was to get Devil’s Hopyard published, that it was more than just a novel, that it could be the kind of book studied in advanced college English classes years from now: picked apart, lauded, ripe for discussion.
Before he knew it, his car keys were jingling in his hand and he was bounding down the stairs toward his car.
* * *
AFTER A BURGER at Bill’s Bar & Burger, Kyle returned the office ready to finish The Dead Can’t Hunt You Down and bring it up at the editorial meeting that afternoon. It was the perfect mix of literary fiction and thriller, and had series potential as well as a sympathetic female lead, crucial for sales. He was confident Carter would throw money at it.
When the elevator doors opened, Kyle saw a circle of people by Amanda’s desk. She had dyed her hair aqua, and he figured the discussion centered around that. Brett was there, obnoxiously laughing at something, and even Brett’s assistant, Darcy, had managed to giggle, a rare occurrence.
The circle opened up to reveal William in the center, wearing khakis and his signature blazer with elbow patches.
“… Dickens walks into a bar and asks for a martini,” William was saying. “The bartender responds, olive or twist?”
Darcy let out a rapid-fire laugh. It was the loudest noise Kyle had ever heard her make. He approached the circle.
“Kyle,” Brett said, slapping him on the back. “Your old professor is killing it over here with these literary jokes.” He turned to William. “Tell him the other one.”
William caught Kyle’s eye to gauge if it was okay to proceed. Kyle nodded and gave William a wide grin that felt phony, but he couldn’t muster up the energy to make it appear genuine.
“Who’s the biggest motherfucker in literature?” William asked. He let the joke hang in the air. Brett and Darcy leaned in; only Amanda was more amused by her fingernail polish. “Oedipus!”
This elicited a roar from Brett, whose face turned red. Kyle wondered if the guy was on coke.
“Ha, motherfucker,” Brett repeated. “’Cause Oedipus actually wanted to fuck his mother. I know you can relate, Kyle.”
“Cute,” Kyle said, the grin still plastered on his face.
“Evidently, “Brett continued, “your old professor has been writing a novel for a decade that you’re reading now.” He faced William. “Don’t sign anything yet with this douche bag before a more experienced pair of eyes has a look.”
Brett shadowboxed with Kyle before summoning Darcy, who slinked down the hallway after him.
Kyle finally dropped his shit-eating grin.
“What are you doing here, William?”
If William sensed Kyle’s displeasure, he didn’t let on.
“I had a business meeting nearby this morning and figured I’d stop by. I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Yeah, I’m slammed today,” Kyle said, starting to walk past William. “We have an editorial meeting.”
“It’s just a rare opportunity I’m in the city,” William said, stepping to the side so he was practically blocking Kyle. Now Amanda looked up from her fingernails.
“The editorial meeting isn’t until four,” Amanda said midyawn.
“Thank you, Amanda,” Kyle responded, gritting his molars.
“There you go,” William said. “It’s only past one now. I promise I won’t overstay my welcome. You can show me your office.”
Amanda pressed the button on her desk so the door opened, leaving Kyle no chance to worm his way out.
“Après vous,” William said, extending his hand as Kyle walked past.
Neither spoke as they headed down the hallway. William was taking in the décor, primed to impress by Carter Sr.: sleek and mod inspired with swirls of book spines stacked to the ceiling. Kyle’s office was at the end.
“They really put you in the back of the bus,” William said as he entered. Kyle stepped in and closed the door.
“Have a seat, William.” Kyle indicated a chair as he went behind his desk. He couldn’t help recalling the countless times William had brought him into his office at Bentley and the two faced each other in reverse.
William rooted around in his pocket. Kyle expected him to pull out something, but he only removed his hand. A moment of silence passed between them.
“So dinner was really fantastic,” William said. He rubbed his left eye that was full of bloodshot veins.
“Yeah, it was great to have you over,” Kyle said, busying himself with turning on his computer. He really did want to get back to The Dead Can’t Hunt You Down, refusing to let another big deal like First Human pass him by.
“And Jamie is such a talented chef,” William said. “Don’t let that one get away, she’s a keeper.”
“We had a little tiff last night,” Kyle said, not even realizing he said it out loud. He immediately wanted to take it back.
“Oh?”
Kyle opened the Dead doc. “Yeah, just stupid stuff. We’re fine. So what are you in the city for?”
William’s eyes glanced to the right. “A follow-up from the conference. A meeting with someone I’d met.”
“An editor?”
“Would that make you jealous?”
Kyle leaned back in his chair, caught off guard. He picked up the handball on his desk and squeezed it for stress relief.
“Jealous?”
“I’m kidding,” William said, chuckling. Kyle remembered his mentor’s chuckle, soft at first as if it was barely there, as if you were imagining it, and then overpowering until it took up the entire room.
“I want you to have an exclusive for Devil’s Hopyard,” William continued. “No one else has seen it yet.
I wouldn’t show it to your colleague Brett, he was just kidding about reading it.”
“I don’t know about that. Brett has a talent for poaching clients rather than finding them on his own. I wouldn’t be surprised if his ear was up against the door right now.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just his shark-like nature. He’s chastised me for not having enough of one. It’s the good boy Wisconsonite in me.”
“Well…” William rubbed his elbow patches a little obsessively. Round and round Kyle watched his hands go. “So how far did you get?”
“With what?” Kyle had started to scroll through The Dead Can’t Hunt You Down, looking for where he left off.
William’s bass chuckle echoed in the small office space. “With Devil’s Hopyard, of course. I have to admit not sleeping last night in expectation.”
Kyle looked away from the computer at William. His mentor seemed sad and crumpled, his face morphing from handsome to toad-like.
“Oh, William, I apologize, really. It’s just been one of those weeks, one of those months, actually.”
William ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been an insomniac for some time.”
“I remember that.”
“You were too, Kyle.”
Kyle cocked his head to one side. That had been such a small sliver of his life. The speed continuously flowing through his body at the time certainly didn’t help. But he couldn’t recall sharing that with William.
“Anyway,” Kyle said, his smile becoming a flat line, “I made it through about forty or so pages of your book.”
“Only forty?”
Kyle ignored that comment. He had sort of prepared what he’d say to William and was formulating the precise way to begin.
“You definitely have a voice,” Kyle said, starting with a positive. That was how his MFA instructors had always opened before the criticism came. “But I worry that the plot is too … elusive?”
“You sound as if that’s not the word you wanted to use.” William had straightened up in his seat—no longer toad-like, now rigid instead like a hawk.
“What is the book really about?” Kyle asked.
“What do you think it’s about?”
“Well, if I had to go on what I read, it’s about a professor fixated on a girl in his class who fantasizes about eating her heart.”
“And?”
“That’s not a plot.”
“What would you call it?”
“Very disturbing.”
“Can’t a plot be very disturbing?”
“Not if you want readers to buy it,” Kyle said. He saw William’s ear twitch, clearly not pleased with his response.
“I don’t know how forty pages is enough to make a claim like that,” William said. He was fidgeting with the paper clips on Kyle’s desk.
“A lot of editors only give a manuscript the first chapter to get a sense,” Kyle said. “Readers are even more picky. If the opening paragraph doesn’t grab them, they won’t buy it.”
“Have you ever heard of a cult classic?” William asked, slightly raising his voice. “Literature meant for the fringes instead of the masses? Nothing worthwhile was ever truly appreciated in its time.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kyle said, looking back at his computer, wanting to get this over with. “William, fiction is very personal. What one editor loves another might hate.”
William slowly cracked his knuckles, one at a time. “So you hated Devil’s Hopyard?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Do you not want to read any more?”
“It just made me uncomfortable.” Kyle looked William in the eye again, fixating on the red veins. “You have to understand that. Maybe it’s because I know you, and the narrator kind of … resembled you, and he’s talking about doing some really fucked-up shit.”
William bowed his head, staring at his hands in his lap. He stayed in that position long enough for Kyle to feel awkward.
“Sometimes a writer needs an outsider’s perspective,” Kyle said, trying to hold back a sigh. “You can’t see what’s not working because you’re too close to it.”
“Devil’s Hopyard is everything to me,” William whispered.
Kyle went to respond but stopped, cautioning himself to proceed more gently. He needed to take off his editor’s cap and just be a friend.
“All first drafts have kinks,” he said. “Donna Tartt takes more than a decade to write each of her books, and look at The Goldfinch—it won the Pulitzer.”
“I’ve already spent ten years,” William said, still so quiet that Kyle could barely hear him.
“But it’s your first. Now if you just work on more of a cohesive plot—”
“I don’t want to make any major edits. In my eyes, it’s perfect.”
“You have to be open to criticism.”
William shook his head back and forth like a child.
“Look,” Kyle said, dragging out the word. “I need to get ready for that editorial meeting. I’d be willing to discuss some plot beats…”
William slapped his knee. “You’re right.”
“Come again?”
“You are the professional, Kyle. I came here today telling myself I’d be flexible, and now look at me, I’m stuck in mud. I apologize.”
Kyle squeezed the handball and it almost popped out of his hand. He couldn’t recall William’s personality back at Bentley changing so haphazardly from moment to moment.
William spread out his arms. “I am open to being molded,” he said. “I am clay.”
“O-kay,” Kyle said. “Well, good. Good.”
“How about we go over it right after your meeting?” William asked, blinking wildly.
“I have drinks with my author Sierra Raven afterward.”
“Look at you, fancy pants. Author drinks, an office in Rockefeller Center, the power to crush a writer’s spirit with just a squeeze.”
The handball popped out of Kyle’s hand and bounced across the room.
“I’m kidding,” William said.
“I’ll call you, William, and we’ll set up a time.”
William stood, forcing Kyle to rise as well. He extended his hand and they shook.
“Thank you for your candor, Kyle.”
“Thank—”
William turned on his heels and headed for the door, scratching at his ear. Kyle wondered if the guy was shielding his face because tears were emerging. He felt terrible. This hadn’t gone how he planned. But once William left, he reasoned it was probably better to tear off that Band-Aid in one fell swoop so the wound of rejection could begin to heal.
He went back to reading The Dead Can’t Hunt You Down, reaching the part in the novel where the ex–hit man’s former boss shows up to silence him for good.
7
WILLIAM PURCHASED A Yankees cap and stood across the street from Burke & Burke’s offices all afternoon waiting for Kyle to emerge. He kept the cap low over his eyes. Rockefeller Center was a busy mix of tourists and suits, and he blended in with the rush of people speeding by.
After a while, his leg began to cramp up, an injury from the army when he fell from a high wall in an obstacle course. The army was a solution to get him away from his father’s farm in upstate New York and his only chance at a scholarship for college; he found the experience invaluable. Discipline was what he craved, and he embraced it wholeheartedly. He was a good solider too, never tested in battle but obedient, strategic, and focused, traits he’d built on in his adult life.
He spied a young woman standing at the Burke & Burke entrance. She was wearing a vintage sweater too large for her frame and her short hair was tucked behind her ear with a barrette in the shape of a bookmark. Sierra Raven. He had done his homework and looked up her Facebook profile. She had more than a thousand friends who liked to respond to posts with emojis. The past month, her feeds were devoted to gushing comments about the book deal.
Soooo cooooooooooolll, Sierra ;)
Girl,
you rock, yer famous ☺
Don’t forget us lil’ people when you’re climbing the bestseller charts :P
It hurt William to read any more. This fetus had achieved the kind of success she couldn’t possibly appreciate. And Kyle probably signed her because he wanted to fuck her. William figured it was a lot easier for a cute girl to get a big contract than it was for an over-the-hill professor. He wondered if publishing had become a pretty person’s game now that social media was such a necessary part of sales. Would grizzly Dostoevsky have had a shot in today’s market? Not likely.
The sun was flirting with setting when Kyle finally stepped out of the building. William noticed a jaunt in Kyle’s step, which made William feel like he’d been punched in the stomach. He tried to recall the last time he walked so sprightly; it had been one night about a decade ago. He’d practically skipped up the stairs and made love to Laura all night as if he was discovering the pleasure of flesh for the first time. At Kyle’s apartment after dinner, he’d felt a similar swell from the thought of Devil’s Hopyard getting out there in the world, but now that joy had shrunk to the size of pebble, a puny reminder of pure bliss.
He watched Kyle hug Sierra, which lasted for seconds longer than a causal embrace. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Kyle made a gesture to head down the street and the two walked away. Making sure he stayed three people behind, William followed them into an Irish pub off Fifth Avenue, its interior dimly lit. They nabbed a booth with Sierra facing the front door, and William slithered into the adjacent booth so his back was against Kyle’s. He took out one of Laura’s compact mirrors so he’d see them if he angled it properly. Some hits from the 1980s played over the jukebox, but it was at a low enough volume that he could hear their conversation. A petite waitress came over, and he ordered a Manhattan and settled in.
* * *
KYLE HAD BEEN looking forward to drinks with Sierra after his long day. The surprise of William showing up at the office had left him flustered. He kept wavering between feeling bad for being honest and pissed off for being put on the spot like that. He resolved to give Devil’s Hopyard another look to see if there was anything redeemable worth rewriting. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to finish The Dead before the editorial meeting. Since Carter liked an entire manuscript to be read, Kyle remained mute at the meeting except when asked about any progress with Tucker Noley. He had completely forgotten about getting on Tucker’s ass to put out the next Gregor Spade novel, so he lied and said Tucker had finally gotten back to work. When the meeting ended, it was already six o’clock and time to meet Sierra.
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